Lanza aims a death-blow at Staten Island's fast bus

Staten Island State Senator Andrew Lanza, whose distaste for Select Bus Service is by this point well-established, is now trying to strip Staten Island’s only rapid bus line of what is arguably its most distinguishing feature.

Lanza has introduced a bill that would bar the city from enforcing a bus-only lane on the Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue Select Bus Service line, arguing that the service has been a “failure.”

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Approached for comment on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Lanza produced a litany of complaints about the bus service, which relies on fewer bus stops spaced farther apart, bus-only lanes, and camera and police enforcement to provide faster bus service along a 15-mile stretch of Staten Island.

The city transportation department and the M.T.A., which together operate the city's still fledgling, six-route select bus service network, point to statistics showing that average ridership on the Staten Island bus line grew by nearly 11 percent after the implementation of the rapid bus program, and bus speeds increased between 13 and 19 percent.

The theory behind Select Bus Service, a low-intensity version of bus rapid transit, is that when you equip a bus line with features like segregated bus-only lanes, transit-signal priority, and buses deployed in rapid succession, you can dramatically speed up bus service.

Given the lack of money available to build new subways, transit advocates have latched on to bus rapid transit as the next best thing.

During his campaign, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to expand the existing network of six select bus service lines into a “world class" fast-bus network of more than 20, but that will entail dealing with some resistance from elected officials like Lanza.

"Hylan Boulevard is worse than ever since they’ve done this," he said.

Also, he thinks the terracotta-colored bus lanes are ugly.

“I don’t know if it’s water paint, I don’t know if it’s come from a kindergarten class,” he said, but it looks like “street graffiti," is "pathetic" and "adds to the confusion."

Lanza’s bill would not eliminate the bus route, but it would eliminate the bus-only lane.

Which is kind of a distinction without a difference.

When Capital asked Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign and a Select Bus Service advocate, whether it is possible have such buses without a dedicated bus lane, he said, “No.”

“I mean, the whole point is to give greater priority to bus riders, because there are 40 or 50 or 60 of them in one vehicle and there’s one man or woman in a single occupancy vehicle,” he said. “It’s an oxymoron. It’s like jumbo shrimp. It’s not possible or plausible.”